Wigan thighs wouldn’t fold like him, the region is built like Garth.
They knew what they were getting: a very talented but extremely fragile player.
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I think Keita’s arc parallels Eden Hazard’s, albeit starting into decline earlier. Hazard had a terrible reputation in terms of his work ethic, other Chelsea players commented with amazement that he could do so little, then simply perform in matches. But as he hit his late 20’s, that became a critical problem.
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Was Keïta reported to have a poor work ethic?
Not exactly - the only negative comment I have heard in that vein about Keita was that he was more interested in training pitch work than physical conditioning work (hardly the only one). But it really looks like he has some physical similarities with Sturridge, likely problematic balances between muscle groups, so hit the difficult stage earlier than Hazard.
My comment was not meaning to imply that Keita did not try, but rather the fact that at one point in their lives, both Keita and Hazard were quite capable of elite athletic performances - and then they weren’t. Once they hit that stage, it was perhaps too late to do anything to reverse that.
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I used to have deep connections to the Orlando Magic back in the Doc Rivers era when the team was built around Tracy McGrady. The story that came out of there every year was one of exasperation at his ability to perform at such a high level without having done any preparation at all. Every year he’d show up on the first day of pre-season over weight having done nothing at all in the offseason and still blow everyone away in terms of capacity to perform. For a day or two at least. And then the aches and pains of being physically unprepared would kick in. And with that went his peak performance and his ability to sustain it. And then, inevitably, at some point over a long season, he’d pick up niggles. Every year they’d hoped he’d see the pattern and buy into the message about needing the look after himself better and every year the only pattern he saw was that he had more god given ability than everyone else and that was enough.
I think most people are familiar on one level or another with stories like this that it is what we reach to whenever we see a player like Keita physically suffer. But it had to be recognized that if you drew the wrong card when your body was put together, this sort of cycle of injury can happen even to those who did the work. Sometimes it is the commitment to doing the work so that the cycle breaks that results in the issues reemerging.
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He might get further injured clambering onto the treatment table
What I’ve come to realise (based on personal discovery and watching other sportspeople) is that the mental drive to maintain your fitness is not a given just because you’re a high level sportsperson.
Some people have it (Ronaldo, Salah), some don’t.
Aquiliani all over again.
On the bench in tonight’s game 
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Of course he was fit enough to play for national team. We dodged a nuclear bomb.
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For the return he gave us,55mp + 5yrs wages is far from dodging one.
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but that’s done and dusted now and he’s no longer our problem.
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the point is, we didn’t dodge the bomb…it went off bigtime in the clubs face.
As you say though, no longer our problem.
Been influential in more matches for us than Thiago has been.
I don’t think he has to be honest.
Unless this sarcastic.
Thiago has been crap at times but has carried the CM also which I’ll hazard a guess was more than 4 games I remember Keita being player of the match for.
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Naby’s debut turn, against Crystal palace I believe, really did pull the wool over a lot of eyes and give him a lot of leeway.
West Ham wasn’t it? He was superb in that I think he reached that height about once or twice in the rest of his tenure.
Man Utd springs to mind before he got injured, possibly a Soton game and I assume there is another.
It was Palace away.
Naby’s had numerous quality games for us. When he was fit, it was mainly all good, apart from two really poor displays. I remember Real away in 20/21 when Klopp took him off before HT for Thiago, but especially Midtjylland away (think that was his first start after returning from one of his injuries).
You did see he struggled a bit with the intensity and physicality of the league, but unfortunately picked up new injuries whenever it looked like he found some rhythm and form.
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Keita was never fit to lace Thiago boots in respective performances for us.
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